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The skills shortage in Vietnam’s white-collar industries has left some multinational law firms with no choice but to hire and train law graduates or expatriates with minimal legal experience.
This phenomenon is common in Vietnam, according to
Baker & McKenzie Vietnam managing partner Fred Burke, not only in the legal industry but also in other professions such as architecture and engineering.
“We are seeing deals hitting the ground because of [the skills shortage],” he said. “You have to recognise the fact that lawyers have to have specific expertise in, say, cross-border bankruptcy law, to be able to make a sound judgment.”
John King, a partner at Tilleke & Gibbons in Vietnam, states that the biggest challenge foreign law firms face is recruitment. Noting that until 10 years ago there were very few commercial attorneys in Vietnam, he said many partners are only 30 years old and lawyers tend to work for only a few years before moving abroad.
Over the past decade, Vietnam’s saturated legal market and an economic slump resulted in the closure of top-tier international firms like
Deacons and
Clifford Chance, some of whose staff have moved to local firms like
Vilaf-Hong Duc.
Duc Tran Anh, that firm’s managing partner, says that most foreign firms find themselves in a situation where they have no choice but to hire fresh law graduates or people with only one or two years’ legal experience.
“The time and effort spent training them is about two years, but they usually go in-house or into business,” he said. “There definitely is a skills shortage, particularly at the managerial level. From a law firm’s point of view, there is a lack of qualified Vietnamese lawyers.”
Milton Lawson, managing partner of
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer says he would like to see Vietnamese schools and universities invest more in law courses that provide more practical skills, at the same time noting this may require liberalisation of the education system.